


The Whip's Bite: Episode Two

by Pinky_GOOLI002



Series: The Bite Series [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, F/F, F/M, Grief, M/M, Multi, Slavery, Vampire Family, Vampire Sex, Vampires, vampire romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:42:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23173372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pinky_GOOLI002/pseuds/Pinky_GOOLI002
Summary: SPOILERS:Now that Elliott is alone, things are hard
Series: The Bite Series [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1665790
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter Twelve: In the Sea

* * *

_ **Episode Two** _

* * *

**** **Chapter Twelve: In the Sea**

The first two days were the hardest for Jeffrinn. Elliot was unresponsive, just lying there in her cot, staring.

The captain didn’t question it, which was unnerving, but the rest of the crew did. On the third day at sea, when Jeffrinn was helping tie one of the sails the captain approached him.

“Come with me.” It was a direct command, with no detail. If Jeff’s heart still beat, he knew it would have missed one. He gulped, nodded, and followed the captain to his chamber.

“The crew is complaining about your relative. She’s not pulling her weight. And to be frank, I am concerned that we left without her husband, your cousin. Is there something I need to know?” The captain was almost emotionless when he spoke to him.

How could he explain that they had to leave without him because he was dead?

“He had unfinished business… he had to take care of it, but did not want us to miss the paid ferry. He said that he will follow us on the next one and meet us in the Americas…” Jeff Stuttered half of this made up explanation, “Sir.”

“Right… I won’t ask what his business is, as it is his. But why is she not doing anything?”

“They have been married a long time, sir. She is having trouble adjusting to being on her own… I’m sure in a couple of days she will get out of her… condition and would be able to help on board. Sir.”

“Stop with the sir for pete’s sake.” The captain sighed. “Fine, I understand. Women and their frailties. I will take her husband’s fare money as a return for her freedom to rest.”

“Yes, of course, that is very fair. Thank you.”

And that was it.

The journey was supposed to last five and a half weeks, and except for the captain and the vampires, there were four more crew mates and three more passengers. The crew was composed of two middle-aged men: Pole and Johnson, a younger man somewhere in his twenties called Buck and his little brother Debs who looked about 13. Then there was the old gentleman Teasdale, his slightly younger friend Stallworth, and a young worker boy, maybe 18, called Brian Woollcott. Surprisingly to Jeff, they were all incredibly strong and capable people.

Jeff found out that Apparently, Stallworth and Teasdale were travelling to make arrangements so their families could join them, whereas Woollcott just wanted to find a new life, hoped to be a writer or some such. The crew, more surprisingly, seemed to be content with a life at sea. Jeffrinn hated it. It couldn’t make him sea sick, but he felt like he would have been if he were human.

He didn’t have much time to socialise. There was a lot of work to be done around the ship, hard work. Not hard for him, but he had to act as if it was hard, to maintain the masquerade of humanity (which also included eating human food, _ugh_ ). Any other spare time he had, he spent by Elliot’s cot.

By the end of the first week, he gave up trying to offer her the bottle of blood to wake her from her apparent coma. He gave up any hope at all. John was dead, and apparently, Elliot had died with him. He saw her wither away, losing mass, her colour… anything that made her look alive. Jeff had to resort to almost hiding even her face during the day, so no one would see how dead she looked. He didn’t know enough about vampires to know if this would kill her or not, if this was really what it looked like when a vampire died of starvation.

When all of Jeffrinn’s hope was gone of saving Elliot, he found time to mourn himself. His Father, his master… he felt lost now without him. He had done what he had promised, but when they reach America Jeff had no idea what he was going to do… John was the one who planned everything.

He often thought of giving up, letting himself starve with Elliot, but he could never do it, after a day or two, when the crew started to look too appealing, he drunk a little bit of blood. Just a sip to calm his hunger and keep him nourished. Jeffrinn didn’t have the self control to keep himself from doing that, it took enough effort not to kill everyone on the boat.

Every moment, every whiff of pumping fresh blood next to him was a test. Keeping his fangs to himself was hard enough, let alone not biting anyone. The only way he could deal with it is working around the ship, where he could smell the salt of the sea instead of the sweetness of human blood, no matter how sick it made him feel.

Jeff just had to keep going… until they reach the Americas… Then he can give up, or find out what to do next. Up to that point he had to focus on the task of passing this journey safely.

***

It was over. Her life was over. There was nothing for Elliot Carter to live or function for now that her own Carter was gone. Was she even Carter now? Without John? How could she know? Why should she bother knowing? She was nothing now anyway, Hollow. Empty.

Her eyes were open, her ears could hear and her skin feel, but she perceived none of it. She didn’t care too.

As a vampire one has to learn how to block certain amount of the senses out, or she would have been overwhelmed constantly. Her state was like she took that too far.

Time meant nothing. Every second alone felt like forever. Therefore she didn’t know how long it was when she started hallucinating.

“Darling… My love… don’t do this to yourself…”

“John! Why? Why did you let him kill you?”

“Some things cannot be controlled my dear. But some things can. Stop this stupid self pitying, you have gone through worse. This is simply a ferry ride.”

“But I’m alone…”

“You are far from it… You have Jeffrinn, you have Emily.”

“Emily?”

But he was gone, the lack of the gaze of his blue eyes leaving another painful hole in her chest.

_Emily? Who’s Emily?_

***

“You know… I was angry at you for a bit… hated you even… not letting me have the space I needed with my father… trying to get rid of me whenever you could. Also you were the reason I became a vampire in the first place, so I guess I hated you for that as well…” Jeffrinn was sitting next to Elliot’s hammock, on the fifteenth day on that boat, while almost everyone was up on deck working, he was whispering more to himself than to her, just to get it out, trying to relax.

“But… I’ve realised that you’re the closest thing to him that I have left… that he wouldn’t have wanted us to hate each other. That we are still family… I guess that in a way, because you were his mate, you are my mother as much as he was my father…” Jeffrinn sighed, looking at his toes and the croaking wood boards below. “So please… Mum, just wake up. For me… for the closest thing you have to a son. Mother I beg of you.”

She stirred, and then she sat up, staring right at him. Her eyebrows pressed together, as if she was calculating something, or trying to figure out his words.

Before Jeffrinn could even smile at his success of helping her, her expression changed from amazement and confusion to wolfish hunger. She was out of her hammock and on top of another before Jeff could stop her. In an animal like posture, she was draining the blood from the poor Stallworth in his sleep.

There was nothing Jeff could do, the smell of fresh blood in the air, coupled with his hunger, was way too much to his young abstinence training. He joined his mother, and soon the body was dry.

They both looked up, mouths covered in blood, truly seeing each other for the first time as the vampires they were, separate but connected: family.

Then Elliot threw up the blood she just drunk.

Jeff was next to her in under a second, holding her shoulders and hair. The sound of her puking caused his fangs to snap back in, and he felt nauseous himself. He didn’t think vampires could even feel like this, let alone actually throw up.

“Are you ok?”

She just looked at him. Death stare.

“Right…yeah…”

“I need to eat.” She growled, her voice surprisingly smooth. For some reason Jeff expected it to be croaky.

“You just did… You might want to wait a little before trying again.”

She growled, but did not disagree, instead she just put her weight onto him, leaning on him and closing her eyes in pain. Her face was creased with emotion.

“You meant that, when you called me mum?” This time her voice did shake.

“Yes… I did.”

There was a long silence as they stood there, motionless, considering this new relationship between them.

_‘This is surprisingly… fitting.’_ Jeff thought to himself as he supported Elliot, his mother.

“So what are we going to do with the body?” He asked when a noise from up on the deck brought him out of his thoughts. “And how are we going to clean up this mess?” There was blood all over the body and his hammock, and it dripped onto the floor.

“Throw him overboard… I’ll clean it up.”

“Not over my dead body, you need to rest until you’re in full strength again.” She was still shaking and fragile in his arms.

He could feel she was going to protest, but then another shiver went through her and she slouched even more, as if she was going to throw up again, but stopped at the last second. Jeff didn’t need to say another word to tell her ‘told you so’.

He put her down in her hammock, and got to work. Taking the hammock with the body down, wrapping the dead Stallworth in his own blankets. But how would he get him up to the deck without anyone noticing? Someone is going to notice when he’s missing anyway… _What would John do?_

Jeffrinn took the body, and put him in the corner of the room, behind some barrels. _I’ll take him at night, when no one will notice._

Teasdale got a little nervous when he couldn’t find Stallworth in the evening, but the rest of the crew just shut him up and told him to get back to go to sleep, as they were all tired and cranky, and Teasdale already proved himself paranoid on several occasions.

So when everyone was asleep except Jeffrinn, Woollcott, and Pole who were on the night duty.

When no one was looking, Jeffrinn sneaked back down stairs, picked up the dead Stallworth, run on deck and swung him overboard in such speed no one could possible see, and then looked at the splash and small area of blood-coloured water as it was getting away from the moving boat.

But when he turned around, he was nose to nose with the Captain.

Jeffrinn was a tall man, but the Captain Collins was even taller. He looked down at Jeff, smiling, with sharp and almost hating eyes.

Jeff’s rational brain knew he could kill this man easily, but he was still very human in his emotions, and almost shivered in fear under the glare of the captain.

“I wondered how long it’ll take you to break, little leach.”

Jeffrinn has heard people call vampires leaches before, but never with such force. He had nothing to say, and even if he had, he couldn’t even open his mouth.

“You’re young, aren’t you? And that ‘cousin’ of yours, is your master, isn’t he?” He said the word cousin in such a way it sounded like an insult in itself, and the way he said master was even dirtier.

The second the captain mentioned John, Jeffrinn’s vampire instincts kicked in, his fangs jumped out with a growl, his pupils blackening his irises.

“You don’t scare me.” There was a stake pointed to Jeff’s heart, poking his skin and drawing blood.

Jeff redrew his fangs, taking a deep breath to calm himself. He felt truly mortal for the first time since he became immortal.

“My master is dead.” The words rang a horrible chime, and hearing them for the first time aloud, Jeffrinn’s feeling of mortality grew.

“Ah, so you were the commotion in the hunter’s house… I heard he managed to get one before he was killed.” The captain was surprisingly calm in face of a vampire, as if he was at home.

Jeffrinn looked behind the captain, seeing Pole distract Woollcott on the other side of the deck… as if he-

“Yes, my crew knows about you too, and Johnson has a stake to your friend’s chest as we speak.” Collin’s words brought Jeffrinn’s gaze back to his, his human eyes threatening the vampire more than any gaze he as even encountered.

“So listen carefully, very carefully, if you want to get out of this boat alive… or even better, not in a collar.” The thought brought shivers down Jeffrinn’s spine. “Then you need to do something for me.”

“A favour?”Jeffrinn was shocked. “That’s it?”

“It’s not that easy of a favour. And I need a vampire to do it.” He shrugged, again, looking way too comfortable in face of a vampire.

“What is it?” Jeff said hesitantly as the stake bared deeper in his chest, causing him actual pain as it got closed to his heart.

“I need you to find me a vampire…”

“And how exactly can I do that?” The stake pressed harder.

“With your sense of smell.” The captain pressed through gritted teeth in anger.

“Right, right… Fine, I’ll try and track your vampire friend.” Jeffrinn didn’t dare to say anymore. He was now in pain, and scared. _What would John do?_

“But until we get there, how are you going to keep Teasdale and Woollcott from running off the boat screaming?”

“I’m sure Pole there and Woollcott have come to an understanding, and Teasdale… Well that’s your job.”

“You want me to kill him?!”

“I really don’t care how you keep him quiet.”

Jeffrinn stared at the captain in shock. He never met a human so… distant from humans.

“This vampire is immensely important to me.” Collins answered Jeff’s unspoken question, and stepped away from Jeff, cleaning the blood from the tip of the stake on his trousers.

“So we have come to an understanding, Jeffrinn?” He reaches out his hand, and Jeff shakes it hesitantly. Its not like he has a choice.

The captain steps away, and it seems everyone is back to normal. When Jeffrinn got to Elliot’s hammock, she’s sitting there, looking at him in shock and anger, with Johnson no where to be seen.

“He. Had. A. Stake. To. My. Throat.” She spits every word as it if it was a knife.

“Yeah, he had one to my heart.” Jeff mumbles between his teeth, pointing to the whole in his shirt and the dry blood on it. However his skin has already healed.

She growled in response, getting up and heading to the ladder leading to the deck. She was being protective. But Jeff didn’t need her to be. He put and hand on her shoulder, holding her back. “We made a deal, it’s fine.”

“No it’s not! He threatened us! A human! How dare-“

“We’re on his ship, like it or not we’re in his mercy… He has collars.”

“We can kill everyone on this ship easily!”

“And then we’ll die at sea.”

“Then we’ll slave them like they did to us.”

Jeff looked at her in horror. “So you want to sink down to their level? Be as disgusting as they are?” He sighed. “No, we have a deal, we’ll carry it out in honour… That’s what John would have done.”

She froze at the sound of his name, staring at Jeffrinn, but not looking or seeing him.

“Elliot?” 

No response.

“Mother?”

Her eyes focused on him again, and then swelled up with tears. Blood tears.

It was the first time the young vampire has seen vampire tears, so he did not expect it. It caught him off guard, and he flinched away from her.

She curled up into herself on the floor, putting her face in her hands and hiding her head between her thighs. Sobbing for the first time since John died.

After the initial shock of the nature of her tears, Jeffrinn took control of himself, and got to his knees next to her. He gently, slowly, hugged her. But he had no words to console her.

When Elliot finished crying, Jeffrinn offered her to dry Teasdale on her own, since she was in a much worse shape then him, especially after crying so much blood. She didn’t argue, but it seemed that she ate with no pleasure, just for the sake of eating, which seemed quite odd to Jeff, but he decided not to bother her about it.

Now that Elliot was back to herself (more or less), and that everyone on the ship knew Jeffrinn and Elliot were vampires, the pair took care of all the chores that Teasdale and Stallworth had, as there was no problem to dash around or show supernatural strength. By the 26th day of the journey, the routine became normal, and the tension between the two species started to fade. By the 30th day they started to be friends again. It was almost unavoidable, as they spent so much time together.

Jeffrinn found out that Johnson and Pole have been with Captain Collins almost ever since he became a Captain, if not a little before, and so they knew quit a lot about his relationship with vampires, even though whenever the subject was brought up they immediately went silent.

Buck and Debs on the other hand were more ready to share, maybe because they knew less. They have only been with the captain for a year or so, and Buck said that he has always been almost obsessed with vampires, hating them but being kind to them at the same time, as if he was almost bipolar about it. Debs kept on saying that he saw the captain try and get vampires on his ship, but when the only ones that came were with collars, he could not handle it asked the hunter in the harbour to take them away.

“Every time we get to the Americas we stop for a long while, even after we have fixed and reloaded. The captain would just disappear for weeks, sometimes even a month or two. Alone! Then he would re-appear at the harbour, all grumpy, and we would leave in the next couple of days, almost in a hurry…” Debs whispered to him one night, looking over his shoulder.

“So you never had vampires around before?”

“No… not like this anyway. Its awesome! You can do so much work in so little time It’s just unfair!”

Jeff laughed, but there was a dark tone in it. “I’m not sure you’ll say that if you were one. It’s a heavy burden to carry.”

Debs shrugged, and turned away, the awkwardness returning in the slightest.

“Jeffrinn!” He heard the shout even though no one around him could. It was Elliot, coughing his name up somewhere in the bellow of the ship. Now that his hearing was pointed to her, he could hear her gurgling and choking. She was throwing up again.

***

Ever since she woke up on that boat she has been feeling strange. Her whole body ached, especially her lower back. She felt nauseous all the time, and she would randomly feel so bad she would throw up. No matter how hungry she was it seemed she always found something more to throw up. If she could, she felt as if she was losing weight. Always hungry, and never enough blood around… They were starting to run out, and every time she ate she felt bad for doing so. At least Jeff had some actual use to it, she knew it would just come out and be wasted if she drunk it. But her son didn’t let her starve, he just got angry at her if she tried to stop eating. On the last week of the journey it got so bad even the captain, who did everything to stay away from her and Jeffrinn, noticed.

“Clean this up.” He barked at them as Jeffrinn arrived to help Elliot up. But then the boat rocked, and instead Elliot found herself throwing up more onto the captain’s feet.

She felt Jeffrinn shrink in fear next to her, but she didn’t. Instead she raised her head, blood dripping from her chin, and stared him straight in the eyes. She will not let the human think her weak.

“How long have this been going on?”

“Um… even since… day fifteen…” Jeffrinn answered hesitantly.

“Every time she ate or randomly?”

“Randomly…”

Without hesitation or asking for permission, the captain put his hand to Elliot’s stomach, fiddling.

She grabbed his hand so strong that she almost broke it, twisting it away from her. He barely grimaced… Instead he smiled.

“You are pregnant.” He exclaimed, sounding victorious.

She let go of him, “Nonsense, vampires can’t get pregnant or reproduce…” John, getting her pregnant? It was not possible.

“Fine, if you think so,” Captain Collins simply shrugged, and walked off. “Clean after yourself.”

They looked at each other, confused. A vampire? pregnant? Furthermore how on earth would a human know?

“Go change and rest, I’ll clean this and do your tasks for the day,” Jeffrinn said quietly. 

“You can’t keep doing this, doing all my work for me…” she grumbled, but couldn’t really argue. She was weak: haven’t eaten enough in weeks, and was throwing up regularly. So she went down to the bellow of the ship and sat on her hammock. Staring forward, she started thinking.

She looked deep into herself, examining with her thoughts her body. How did her stomach feel? Did it feel like something was growing inside her?

Instead of a clear answer, a name floated to her mind.

Emily…

The name her vision of John said… When he said she wasn’t alone.

Could it be his ghost knew?

The more she thought about it, the more she found herself agreeing with the captain… It seemed she was pregnant.

She put her hands on her stomach, closing her eyes and trying to see the foetus with her mind’s eye. She imagined a baby, with John’s eyes and hair…

And Elliot started to cry again. Except this time it wasn’t entirely tears of sadness. There was a little joy in them too.

She had a piece of John still in her… And soon she will have a piece of him to look at every day, to teach and care for…

But her mate should have been there with her. To teach the child… How can she be a good mother to this creation without John? There were so many things he was better at than her.

And her thought went back to how unrealistic this was. Vampires couldn’t reproduce. That’s nonsense! But Elliot knew she was… there was no other explanation for this, this feeling of life inside her stomach.

“Mother?” Jeffrinn’s palm was on her knee, and she opened her eyes in surprised. It seemed that a long time has passed as it was now dark outside.

“Are you all right?”

“It seems this human captain was correct.” She said plainly, but her voice betrayed her, and broke on the last word.

Jeff’s expression was unreadable, too many emotions, and she didn’t know him as well as she wanted to.

“You sure?” he asked at last, standing up and towering above her. He was slightly shorter than John, but still taller than her.

“Yes.”

Her adopted son took a deep breath, and nodded.

***

Jeffrinn was unsure of how he felt about this. Obviously he was happy that Elliot had a child, and John’s child none the less. But he felt no connection to the thing, whatever it was (since it wasn’t exactly a vampire for it was a born one). He knew technically he was a brother to it, but he felt more threatened than comforted by it.

Elliot has finally accepted him as her son as he accepted her as mother, but with that there he was like no son at all. He feared their relationship will go back to what it used to be, and he didn’t know if he could handle being so alone.

The more time he was a vampire, the more Jeff realised that vampires were not solitary animals like they were made to look to humans. They needed family more than anything. What family meant was a very different thing to what it meant to humans, but it was needed, it was necessary.

But he couldn’t let her see. He had to be supportive because she kept getting weaker and weaker. And she was still his mother.

The days crawled by, and by the time the ship at last reached the harbour she could barely stand. She was on the edge of slipping into a torpor. A vampire coma.

When the ship was at last tied and secure, he waisted not time to get to the captain. 

“I’m taking Elliot to eat.”

“We have a deal waiting.”

“I’ll find your vampire but first I need to take care of my mother.”

Collin grimaced in disgust at his words, but he nodded.

“Come back by morning light.”


	2. Chapter Thirteen: A Kept Promise

**Chapter Thirteen: A Kept Promise**

The vampires couldn’t risk it. They had to go to the edge of the port town and then beyond, into the forest. By the time they got to the woods (only about one minute of running) Elliot couldn’t move anymore, and Jeffrinn found himself picking her up and carrying her further. They had to find the next town over to feed, and even that was risky: Because Jeff knew that neither him nor his mother could contain themselves and stop from killing once they started feeding. He was too young and she was too hungry.

So Jeff ran with her in his arms, her arms slung by her side, dangling. She was barely conscious.

He didn’t even check, when he saw the first house Jeffrinn ran in, bursting in the door to the little cottage. All that was there were an old couple.

But it was enough.

In less than a second Jeffrinn put his mother down on the floor, grabbed that heartier of the two, which ended up being the wife, and dragged her to Elliot, easily cutting her wrist with his nail and placing it over Elliot’s lips.

At once her eyes opened, black, and she grabbed the old women’s arm, almost breaking it by pulling it harder against her lips as she bit the vain with her fangs.

The smell of the blood almost caught Jeffrinn off guard, but luckily he managed to turn himself away and set his ready fangs on the old man instead.

So many memories… This man was so old, and saw a lot. He had children and grandchildren, but they all lived so far away… Jeffrinn felt the sadness in this man as he was dying. But also felt his relief of the fact he was dying.

He was the first man Jeffrinn ever tasted or killed that welcomed death.

It was refreshing, even if the blood itself had little nourishment in it.

When he was done, Jeffrinn turned to see Elliot sitting up, brushing her clothing, as if noticing for the first time how dirty they were.

Without saying a word she turned and went into another room. She came back out before Jeffrinn thought of following, and was wearing a lovely dark red dress, in a very american style.

He blinked, as he never realised how pretty she could be. Ever since he met her all he saw in her was a savage and brutal wolfish of a vampire, living on animal instincts and desires. But now she almost… seemed human.

She was just as admirable.

“Mother,” he smiled, as he noticed a heavy weight lift from his chest at seeing her recovered.

“Son,” she replied with a smile, that was quickly replaced with a grimace as she bent forward, one hand on stomach, another on mouth.

He rushed to her side, but she seemed to be able to hold it in, and he heard her swallow it again.

“I’m fine. I’m fine,” she pushed him away, straightening up. She seemed determined to not be weak again.

Jeff sighed, he wanted to help, and support her, but like always she wouldn’t let him. This wasn’t a need to help like it was with John, it was much more emotional and less physically necessary. But his body still knew this was John’s mate, and something from the master-son relationship seemed to remain.

She stood with her back to him for a second, collecting herself, then turned back again with a smile, kissing his cheek lightly.

“Don’t worry about it, it’ll be okay.”

He frowned, looking at her happy expression and sensing some kind of pain beneath it.

What was she hiding now?

But she didn’t want to tell him, so he didn’t ask.

They ran back to the ship with no problem, with the moon still in the sky. And Captain Collins was waiting impatiently.

“Let’s go, come on,” he motioned to Jeff, starting to walk away from the ship.

The young vampire sighed. “Right, wait in the ship please, we’ll be back shortly I’m sure.”

“You sure you don’t want me to come along? Tracking is no easy task.”

“No, you might feel better, but you are in no condition” he motioned at her stomach with his chin, “to do this. So rest and we’ll be back.” 

She scrunched up her nose in anger but didn’t protest.

So Jeffrinn turned and jogged to catch up with the captain.

“Captain, who exactly are we looking for?”

“Don’t call me captain now. We’re on land. Collins is enough.”

“If so, can I ask for your full name?”

“Can I ask for yours?”

Jeffrinn hesitated, but decided there was no harm since it was not Elliot’s surname. 

“Jeffrinn Brooke.”

“Luke Collins.”

They continued to walk in silence for some time, heading for the edge of the port town. But Jeff couldn’t hold his curiosity or anger.

“So who are we looking for?”

“A vampire called Claudia O’Neil. Not that this will help you find her. I’ve been trying to look for her for years now with now luck. She’s hiding under a different name somewhere in this country. As a human… And she’s hiding well. The only way that I can think of to find her now is by smell… Well your smell.” Collins fiddled in his pocket until he took a locket out, and he handed it to Jeffrinn.

“Her hair is in there, smell that and find her.”

“This won’t help me if I don’t know what area she will be. If she hasn’t been around here recently I won’t find her.”

“She’s around here. Trust me she will not live away from the sea.”

Jeff frowned, but decided to not argue. This human was beyond his understanding. He carefully opened the locket and sniffed the hair inside, before closing it again.

He never used his sense of smell to tell anything about vampires, so this was challenging and exiting for the youngster. He looked around, breathing in the air of the early morning.

Sure enough he managed to catch something on the wind. It was faint, and old. But the same hair seemed to have brushed a tree not far from there.

He had to walk in an excruciating slow human pace, so that Collins could keep up, as he followed the scent, but when he got to the tree he realised that the trail is too long and there was no way he could find this vampire on a foot pace of a human.

“How about I go and find where she resides, and come back to get you? It will take us weeks on foot.”

Collins shifted his weight from one foot to the other, uneasy in letting someone else over the hunt for this Claudia. But at last he nodded, took the locket and started to head back.

Jeffrinn sighed in relief, but soon realised that Collins has Elliot. So he turned back to follow the scent he was not locked on.

The young vampire didn’t realise that Elliot’s words were true and tracking was not an easy thing: because he also did not know that he had an innate capacity for tracking, like his grandmother’s brother, who also he knew nothing about, but was the most known vampire tracker in Europe.

So Jeffrinn ran with ease after the smell, through the forest, through a river and up the mountainside: To a city that resides near the river and grew so big it climbed halfway up the mountain: until it couldn’t anymore because the angle became too sharp and the weather too cold.

It was the biggest city Jeffrinn ever saw.

The smells, the lights, the dazzlements of properly paved streets that he hasn’t seen in more than a year set his tracking back. Too many smells, and his senses were overpowered.

He roamed the city, looking at the beautiful white building at the centre, the metal fountain, the stone buildings with sharp roofs.

Then the sun came up, clearing Jeffrinn’s head and setting him back on task.

He found it harder to follow the smell during the day, as if his senses slightly dulled, but he was so close now it was still quick to find.

It was a huge house, one of the prettiest in the city. Three stories high, white coating on good built stone. Red roof, heavy oaken door, real glass windows.

And there was more than one vampire living in there.

He stood in front of the house, on the other side of the street, masked by the smells of the cafe that stood there, as he scanned it.

Claudia was in there for sure, but she wasn’t the only one. There was another vampire, as old as Claudia… And there was something else.

It didn’t smell completely like a vampire, but it didn’t smell like a human too.

But Elliot was in danger. No matter how interesting this was, he had a duty and he had to go back. So he turned and ran back on his trail. The way back took him half the time, and he was back by the afternoon.

To his great relief, the humans did nothing to Elliot, as he could smell her alive and well… But Collins was impatient as ever, playing with a stake as he sat on the dock.

“I found her, She’s in a city about a two day’s ride for you.” Jeff didn’t waste time and started to climb to the ship, wanting to get out Elliot.

“Oh not so fast, you’re going to take me there.” Collins said calmly and motioned with the stake, as if to say they had Elliot hold up. But before he could continue his threat Elliot was there, holding Pole with one arm around his neck, her fangs drawn and her eyes black instead of green.

“You managed to catch me unprepared once, human, you thought you could do it again?” She hissed, saying human as an insult, she was grinning.

“I’ll take you to her, but that’s because you gave us safe travel, because of honour and respect.” Jeffrinn said slowly, looking at Collins straight in the eye. He was a vampire and this was a human. And there was no question who would win now.

Collins was frozen, looking at his man with worry, and slowly he put the stake down, as a sign of defeat.

Elliot chuckled, but as she pushed Pole away from her she scratched his shoulder with her teeth, tasting some of his blood. The smell reached Jeffrinn instantly, and his fangs came out at once. It took him all his strength not to jump at the human and kill him.

Pole put a hand on his small wound, looking at the two vampires in horror, before he ran into the bellow of the ship.

“Let’s go, get it over with.” Elliot said as she licked her lips, retracting her fangs and he eyes showed green again. She elegantly walked down from the ship, passing Jeff with a wink.

She puzzled him, he never saw her like this… even if he had a glimpse of it when with John, it seemed she never let it all out like this…

This time Jeffrinn saw a complete Elliot: She was a beast, but she was a lady beast. Quiet, gentle, deadly, vicious.

***

Elliot hasn’t felt like this in almost three years. She was weak, true, but she didn’t let it hold her back. Also this was someone she never let her mate see, it was even too much for him, and she discovered that early on. But Elliot didn’t care about scaring Jeff. He was her son and he would have to listen, to learn, and if she could teach him to be strong like her father taught her, she will do her best.

“So we found your vampire, but I do not want to waste time dilly dallying and riding horses. If you want us to take you this badly. We’ll carry you.” As she finished her sentence she heard Jeff inhale sharply, he knew he would be the one to carry the human and it seemed he didn’t like the idea.

“Fine,” Collins growled, and Elliot smiled a cute little smile.

“You sure about this…?” Jeff whispered in her ear, he seemed uncomfortable with the idea of carrying someone bigger than him.

“Yes son, you’ve carried humans before, we’ll be there by midnight if it’s as close as you say, that’s no time at all you can deal with that.” She looked him dead in his soft caramel eyes. He reminded her too much of young John. Soft.

It hurt her heart, physically, and she felt nauseous again, but she didn’t let any of it show.

Reluctantly Jeff at last picked up Collins on his back, and started running, leading the way.

They were slower than she would have liked, but sure enough by the night they arrived at a city.

It was nothing like a British city. It was nothing like stuffy London or smelly Liverpool. It was bright, and clean… most of it any way. Collins was put down, and they walked the street at a human pace, which was painfully slow, but still her son lead the way. The swiftness of his tracking impressed her. She has had to track many times before, to find John, but it took her days sometimes… It seemed Jeff was much better at it. And she was proud.

They arrived at one of the nicest streets, one of the nicest houses, and Jeff motioned to it, “She’s in there.”

She? They’ve been looking for a she? Oh this will be interesting.

Collins took a deep breath and straightened his shirt before stepping up the steps and knocking on the door.

Less than two knocks and it was open, a tall, lean blond vampire that smelled ancient stood at the door. She was beautiful, with a sharp chin and small lips.

And she looked angry, but said nothing.

“Claudia.” Collins said, sighing in relief. “I’ve been looking for you since-“

“Yes I know, and I have been avoiding you on purpose. How dare you use vampires to track me?” She growled, still one hand on the door, still looking like a proper lady even with her harsh tone.

This was the kind of vampire Elliot liked.

“I need to see him Claudia! You can’t keep him from me forever! Were you planning to let me die without seeing you ever again?” He sounded desperate, and for the first time he seemed like a normal, emotional human.

Claudia looked around, as if this was making too much of a commotion, and reluctantly let the three inside.

The house was beautiful, and it was plain to see the vampire was rich.

“Yes I was going to let you die without seeing him, you don’t deserve him.” Claudia said quietly as she closed the door behind them, her whole body tense.

“He’s my son!”

Elliot froze. Because just as the human said that she noticed the smell.

She’s heard about these creatures, half human, half vampire, but in all the stories it was a human that gave birth to it, and they always were made to sound weak and worthless. But she could smell power in this small child that walked down the stairs. He was maybe 3 years old, only a toddler, with blond hair and grey eyes. He had his thumb in his mouth and looked confused.

Collin’s breath shuddered as he saw him, and his eyes filled with tears, but before he could get close Claudia was between them, picking up her son.

Elliot’s hand went slowly to her stomach, that was now bigger than it was before, showing her she was indeed pregnant.

This was why the human knew she was with child… He has seen it before.

“You don’t belong here Luke.”

“He’s my son…” this time his voice was weak, breaking. “Please, Claudia, I know I’ve wronged you but you know my life is short, you can’t let me live without being there for him.”

“I can, and I will because you weren’t there when we really needed you. So off you go back to your sea-“

“It’s you’re sea too.”

“Shut up Luke” She growled.

Elliot looked down at her stomach and thought of John, and how she wished he was here to help her with the baby that was to come.

So she stepped forward.

“Excuse me, ma’am, but I believe you should give his father a second chance.”

“And why is that?” It seemed to be the only reason Claudia didn’t tear Elliot’s head of was because she was a vampire too.

“Because I would give anything to have my mate beside me, and even though you seem to have found an unusual mate, he still is. I can smell it. And the boy deserves to have a father.”

Claudia blinked, surprised at Elliot’s words, and then it seemed she noticed Elliot’s hands on her stomach, and her jaw dropped: because she could smell no human mate on Elliot.

Claudia swallowed, and looked back at Collins. Her expression hardened again, but it was softer than before. “Fine, you can spend some time with him, but I’m sure you’re ‘crew’ will need you and you’ll leave again” She said it with such anger that Elliot forced herself to look at Jeffrinn to give her some strength. She missed John so much, it hurt every minute. Every second.

Collins seemed sad, because Claudia was correct and he could never stop sailing. But he was also happier. And carefully, cautiously, he reached for his half vampire son, and reluctantly Claudia gave the toddler to him.

“Hello handsome,” the human whispered and then stopped looking up at Claudia with the most painful expression.

“Raine, his name is Raine.” She answered.

Tears filled the human’s eyes, and Elliot felt herself begin to cry to, but she held it in, with one hand on Jeffrinn’s shoulder, as they watched the human take his son to the other room.

The second the vampires were alone, another appeared from upstairs. She looked old, about 40, the oldest looking vampire Elliot has ever seen. But she had a welcoming and calm air about her, with dark long hair tied up in a bun.

“Who are you?” Claudia assumed her alpha stance. She was a little shorter than Elliot, but she was threatening non the less.

“I am Elliot Carter, and this is my son Jeffrinn Brooke. We just arrived with Collins from England. We fled the slavery there.” Elliot would not let a vampire threaten her, regardless of how old she was.

“He’s you’re mate’s son,” The older looking vampire said, looking puzzled.

“Yes but I don’t see why that matters.” Elliot answered with tight lips.

“I’m sorry, I did not mean to sound so harsh, I’m Martha Williams, this is Claudia O’Neil. And this city is our territory since it was first built, so you see why we must protect it from other vampires.”

“Of course, we never intended to come into it so harshly. But like I said we fled, we don’t have a territory of our own, we don’t know where is safe and where isn’t here… we’re just looking for somewhere safe to-“ she stopped, taking a deep breath, she wasn’t sure how to put this.

“To give birth?” Claudia asked gently. It seemed that subject was her soft spot, as obviously she has gave birth.

“Yes.”

“To a halfling?” Martha asked, now more closely examining Elliot with her eyes and nose.

“No. I don’t think it is.”

The two older vampires looked at each other for a second, so Elliot decided to take the opportunity before it was missed.

“Williams you said? As in Williams the vampire family? as in Layla Williams?”

Martha blinked in surprise.

“You met my sister?”

“Yes we passed ways, I believe she’s still well in her hiding place in England.”

Martha sighed. “If Layla trusted you, I must trust you too. She is the most paranoid little brute and if she showed you her hiding place, she must have thought greatly of you.”

Claudia opened her mouth to protest, but Martha shut her up with one look. It was obvious now who the real alpha was.

“If you are prepared to give your allegiance, I will accept you into our clan.”

“That will be a very interesting union, Martels and Williams.” Elliot smiled, revealing that she knew more than she let on to begin with.

Claudia at once bared her fangs, her soft grey eyes turning black, and she prepared to pounce. By her side Jeffrinn reacted the same, hissing back.

Elliot let her fangs slip out, but she didn’t let her posture or composure go. She just looked at Martha with a soft smile, and in the most sweet voice she said “Isn’t it about time?”

Martha just started laughing.

“I knew I smelled something,” she just smiled, and reached her hand out. Elliot reached her own out, and they shook hands: while their nails pressed deeply into each other’s palms, blood dripping on the floor.

Elliot only ever saw this happen once, and it was odd to do the same.

It was a kind of blood pact. As a vampire wouldn’t accept another into his home and clan without some sort of proper agreement of trust.

It was obviously possible to betray this pact, but it would be so shameful no vampire could look at himself again if he did so.

This was not England, where your vampiric birth decided your alliance. This was the new world, here clans meant as much as families did back there.


	3. Chapter Fourteen: Re-Building, Re-Birth

**Chapter Fourteen: Re-Building, Re-Birth**

Jeffrinn didn’t understand a lot of this vampire politics, so he let Elliot do everything and kept quiet and to himself.

The house had three stories and a cellar, so there was plenty of room. At the bottom floor was the kitchen, a dining room, a reception room and a living room. At the first floor there was a bathroom, a huge bedroom, a normal one and an office. And at the top floor there was a room with a shower, and two other guest rooms.

Since Elliot was pregnant, she got the smaller bedroom on the first floor, and Jeffrinn got one of the rooms on the top: the one overlooking the garden. Claudia and Raine had the big bedroom and Martha moved to the room with the shower next to Jeffrinn. He had a feeling that it was done to keep them separate and in check, though they claimed it was for ‘comfort’.

As the days went passed it seemed that Elliot was getting better. Not emotionally, Jeffrinn didn’t think she would ever heal from losing John. He wasn’t sure he would be either. But she was getting healthier. She was not throwing up randomly so much, was keeping herself cleaner and walking with a stronger step.

This territory had weird rules. Even though the city was so big, they were only allowed to eat once a month: if from a healthy person they were not allowed to kill. If it was someone homeless or dying they could with discretion, but it seemed that Martha still didn’t like it. In between that they were allowed to hunt as many animals as they wanted, but Jeffrinn found the taste of animal blood unsatisfying and furry, so he kept that to a minimum too.

Unlike him Elliot seemed to relish in this orderly, ordinary life. She seemed to enjoy any kind of hunt, and ignored Martha’s frowns and once a month she found some poor human to kill. Jeff admitted to himself that he couldn’t imagine Elliot ever stopping killing, so he was happy that she found a way to keep doing it without blowing their cover.

Here no one knew they were vampires. They were living under pretence of being human: Martha was one of the richest people there, and she has lived there since it started, so it seemed people respected her and turned a blind eye to her immortality. Claudia on the other hand needed a stronger disguise, and since she gave birth it seem that a mother was enough to occupy her and her neighbours. But now the vampires needed to work on a story for the newest members of the Ohio clan.

Elliot set her mind to telling as much truth as she could, and said that she was a widow, that her husband died and so his brother (Jeffrinn’s disguise) took heraway so she wouldn’t have to live there any more. And in the same story they made it so Jeffrinn was a far relative of Martha (something she assured to him no one would question), so that they had a reason to stay with them.

When Jeffrinn suggested living somewhere else Elliot just laughed at him, saying it made no sense and in these kind of situations it was much safer to live together, especially since Martha had such a big influence and gave them such good protection.

So the months went by, and they slowly got to know each other. Jeff discovered that even though she was stern, Martha was very kind. He found out that Claudia had a hot temper but was a very loving mother to Raine, who was a whole subject on itself.

He grew as normal humans did, just a little slower, he ate mainly human food, with a little human blood every so often. He was strong but not as strong as a vampire, fast but not as fast. His senses were very close to a vampire’s, but again lacked some finesse.

He seemed to love Jeffrinn.

They were both the most human of the lot, and therefore somehow attracted to each other. The toddler went often to climb and play with Jeffrinn, and fell asleep in his arms a lot. And the youngling seem to find some comfort in the toddler too, and was calmer with him than at any other time.

Soon, the nicknames started.

“Uncle Jeff! Uncle Jeff! Look!” Jeffrinn heard the young boy’s voice from the garden, and hurried outside to find the toddler staring under a rock at a bunch of insects. Claudia was sitting in the shade nearby, reading a book and drinking red wine. After almost four months she seemed to have accepted Jeffrinn’s relationship with her son.

“What have you found now little one?” Jeff smiled, kneeling next to the halfling to look at what he found. Since he was stronger than normal children he managed to lift a big stone up, and found underneath hundreds of beetles and spiders.

“That’s very cool, do you see how they run? they want to find shade because you disturbed their habitat.”

“Oh no! I didn’t mean to!” Raine’s eyes filled with tears as he watched all the insects run away.

“Don’t worry, it’s fine I’m sure the next home they find will be better, but lets put he stone back now,” gently Jeff took the boy’s hand away and let the stone drop.

The toddler hugged Jeff “They’ll be ok?”

“Yes, don’t worry, insects are resilient.”

Life went on, with little moments of happiness, and moments where Jeffrinn felt his heart ache at Elliot’s expression or at his own memories of John. They never mentioned it, but they missed him greatly.

And all the while Elliot’s stomach grew.

***

It has been 8 months since they arrived in Ohio, and Elliot was now huge. Since she was a vampire it was still easy for her to move about, but she couldn’t bend or move as elegantly as she used to. She was slower, and always tired and always hungry.

It was getting on her nerves.

“I’m going to eat.” She exclaimed, not very loud cause there was no need to be loud around vampires, but loud enough that also Raine could hear.

“Don’t kill anyone you did that a week ago.” She heard Martha reply. She didn’t sound happy, but she was surprisingly patient with the impatient Elliot.

“I’ll go kill some stupid animals then,” she growled in return, heading out of the house that was more or less on the edge of the town and up to the mountain. The forest there was thick, and wolves, deer, goats and sometimes bear roamed there freely. They were all a good snack, but nothing as fulfilling as what Elliot really wanted.

She wanted murder.

Yes she was physically hungry, but what Elliot wanted was to hear someone scream and cry and beg in her arms. She wanted to torture the life out of a human being. And she hasn’t done it in almost two years now, not properly.

So after killing a rabbit or two, when her fangs were still out and blood on her chin she decided to screw it. She needed to kill, and no clan alpha was going to stop her.

She took a deep breath and run down the hill and into the slums of the city, she ran so fast she had to hold her stomach not to hurt it. There she found young looking fellow asleep near a trash pile, and without hesitation she picked him up, lifted him on her shoulder and ran fast back into the mountains he couldn’t even open his eyes.

She dropped him on the frozen ground gently enough to not break him, and stood over him, fangs out, eyes black and smiling.

He just stared, in shock, still awakening, but she could smell his adrenaline.

“What’s your name little boy?” She hissed, her voice sweet as honey.

She didn’t really care, she knew his blood will tell her that soon enough.

“B…Ben…”

“Good boy,” she said as she crouched down next to his head, moving his dirty hair from his face and looking into his little brown eyes. He was so… puny, here at her disposal. And oh she will dispose of him surely.

She put her thumb next to his nose, and slowly, surely, almost gently, she pressed her nail into his soft skin. When he tried to move, she simply held him down with her other hand. But she let him scream as she pulled her nail across his cheek, making a deep cut.

His wriggling and shouting was so cute. Pleases and whys. It was adorable!

“Don’t worry child, soon enough it will be over,” She giggled, because she did not plan this to go fast.

She held his face still as she licked the blood off his cheek, and as she leant away she turned to his chest.

After ripping his shirt, she slowly started carving his chest. Not deep enough to bleed out,not deep enough to kill, just carving the skin: above every rib.

And every time he started to faint from the pain she licked his wounds until he woke. His face was full of salty tears by the time she left his chest alone, this time she reached for this eyes.

Holding his eyelids open, she carefully carved his irises out, beautiful and brown, and threw them away: until all that was left was a bloody hole in the centre of the eye, with goo oozing out. 

His cries couldn’t have been louder.

When she was satisfied he was in enough pain, also after snapping his kneecaps just to hear them pop, she decided it was time to really taste his pain.

She knew every vampire tasted pain, the pain of the bite. But she knew that only few vampires tasted the pain she has. And it was sweet like nothing else. It wasn’t just in the memories, or the adrenaline, it was as if it added something else to the blood, something that she couldn’t compare to anything else. It was her favourite taste, her secret, dirty pleasure.

So Elliot bit into the boy’s chest, her long fangs sinking right into his feeble heart, so the blood gushed out in quantities she could never swallow at once. But the warm feeling of it slipping against her cheeks lips and tongue was what she wanted. The feeling of the memories washing away and disappearing. The taste of agony, of misery and terror.

A shudder went down her spine as the memories that did make it into her throat washed over her. All this boy’s life has been fear, it was perfect. She delighted in his torment as for a second she felt it in her bones. For a split second she really felt his fear suffering, and then it was gone, leaving her to sigh in delight as she sucked him dry.

She licked the cold blood from the body before licking her lips, the boy’s screams still ringing in her ears. Elliot stood up and turned to go, knowing the body will be eaten by the forest’s animals soon enough. And surely as she turned she saw three wolves looking at her, checking, seeing what she was made of. 

So she smiled, growled deep from her throat, bearing her teeth, and slowly walked away from the body back towards the city.

The wolves slowly let her pass, a soft growl coming from them, but their heads were bowed. They knew who would win this battle, so they didn’t fight.

She arrived back at the house through the back door, quietly trying to get to the bathroom as her — luckily — black dress was stiff with blood.

Just as she opened the door to the bath, she heard Martha standing behind her.

_Well shit._ Elliot thought, as she drew a deep breath and turned around.

“I now see what took you so long,” the old vampire motioned to her bloody clothes.

Elliot just shrugged. “Oh well, I needed to let something loose.”

“If you disobey the rules like that again, I will not forgive you so easily.”

Elliot was about to ask what on earth Martha can do to her, but from knowing older vampires she gathered that she could probably torture almost as well as Elliot herself, so she swallowed the remark and just nodded. No matter how strong she was there was no way she was as strong as a 1500 year old vampire.

“Clean up, we’ll discuss this further la-“ Martha didn’t get to even finish her sentence, because Elliot suddenly shouted in pain, folding forward with arms wrapped around her belly.

Jeffrinn was next to her in an instant, arms around her shoulders and eyes searching for an answer.

She took a deep breath and started to straighten up as the pain passed, but just as she was about to nod to Jeff that everything was ok another wave came. It was sharp, like all her body squeezed at once.

“Well about time,” she heard Martha sigh, and call for Claudia.

“Jeffrinn take Raine and go for a walk, this will take a while.”

“What? What’s going on?”

“She’s giving birth.”

***

Jeff sat with Raine in his arms in the garden. Vampires had no problem with the cold, so even though it was mid winder, Jeffrinn didn’t wear a coat. However the halfling was both young and human enough to need a good leather coat.

The two males didn’t speak, just sat there in silence, trying to ignore the screams coming from the house.

“Do you think mummy was in that much pain when I was born?” suddendly Raine whispered.

“I don’t know, but I’m sure she was fine. She had Martha too to help her.”

“But Aunt Elliot doesn’t sound fine.”

Jeff pressed his lips together, because he couldn’t argue. He wanted so bad to go and help his own mother, but he couldn’t. He was a man and they were not allowed into such red rooms. Even if John was there he would have sat outside with them.

Thinking that Jeff swallowed hard. He knew this will make Elliot miss John even more, and he was scared what kind of effect it will have on her. He was also scared of the effect this would have on his relationship with his mother. Would she go back to disposing him like she did when John was still here? or would she grow indifferent, and just not care about him? Even while living with these vampires, Jeffrinn felt like she was all he had left, and the fear of losing that last connection terrified him.

So he hugged Raine a little tighter, encouraging him to fall asleep, and tried to doze off too, just to not hear his vampiric mother scream. He couldn’t bear to hear her pain.

The night passed, and morning came. Neighbours came and asked what was going on, and Jeff had to apologise again and again for the noise and explain. Some seemed disgusted, and turned away, and some, mostly old ladies, seemed exited and said they will come back with presents. Jeffrinn didn’t really know anyone, but they all seemed to be as friendly and caring. It was a very different behaviour than he has ever encountered in England from neighbours.

“Oh! Fabulous! Little Raine would have someone to play with at last, ah boy?” said one mother, who was holding her own baby. She squeezed the boy’s cheek, and then patted Jeffrinn’s too — after all he didn’t look much older than 19 — smiling and chatting, not even caring Jeffrinn barely made a sound.

“Great! Just great! We’ll be back with some nice food for the lucky, what’s her name again? oh yes Elliot, oh how sweet! Just brilliant! Right right, we will be seeing you soon!” she walked away, dragging her other young child behind. And Jeffrinn sighed in relief as he at last closed the door.

“I don’t understand woman,” he admitted quietly to Raine, “they prattle and chat, doesn’t make sense…” he mumbled, but the boy seemed distracted, as if he noticed something from upstairs. He was almost four now, and his senses were getting sharper.

So Jeffrinn turned his hearing and smell up stairs as well, and he noticed it too at last.

Elliot stopped sobbing or screaming, she was breathing unevenly, but normally. And there was another breathing… There was another heartbeat.

This was it… it was over… or it began.

***

Elliot held her daughter with shaking arms, blood tears covering her face.

Her skin was so white, her lips redder than blood. Her eyes perfectly green and the little hair she had was darker than night.

“Oh my Emily,” Elliot sighed, and started sobbing.

She could smell John in Emily’s smell, as well as her own and her father’s. And her black hair was just like his, or at least she could see it being like his when it grew a little.

It was obvious she was his daughter, just like Elliot knew she was from the beginning.

The baby’s heartbeat was so fast, Elliot couldn’t even keep count on it with her vampire senses, and she was now crying too.

But she wasn’t crying tears of blood like her mother, her tears seemed almost normal. And for some reason that made Elliot extremely happy.

“My beautiful Emily, my Emily,” She kept repeating over and over again as Martha and Claudia started to clean the bed.

“Elliot my dear you need to feed her, you should have milk.”

Elliot nodded with teary eyes, and slowly with Martha’s help, she guided her daughter to her breast, and the little one was ready to latch on and suck.

She didn’t have teeth yet, and as Martha predicted Elliot had some kind of milk, though it didn’t smell like normal breast milk… it smelt bloodier.

The new mother kissed the top of her child’s head and closed her eyes in happiness. 

She was almost whole again.

Elliot’s life seemed to be okay again. Even though she still missed John with every cell in her body, she also loved Emily with every cell. So she seemed to be happy.

All she could think of was her daughter, every waking moment was about her. Feeding her, washing her, carrying her around, showing her the world, watching her grow.

It seemed she was growing slightly faster than normal human child, but not at any rate that was obvious to the humans.

When Elliot first introduced Emily to Jeffrinn, couple of hours after she was born, Elliot was beaming.

“Doesn’t she look like John? Doesn’t she smell like him?” She almost sang the words.

Jeffrinn carefully took the little baby hand, even though she was sleeping and her eyes were closed, he leaned close and whispered in her ear.

“Hello sis’ “

Nothing would have made Elliot happier at that moment. (Except for John being there of course)

At first they didn’t let any humans around, because Elliot was weak and her fangs were often out for no reason. Sometimes she just laughed at Emily’s expression and they came. But when Emily was about two month old Martha insisted to throw a party.

The house was full of humans, mostly rich ones, or influential ones. And they roamed around, congratulating Elliot and remarking on the beauty of Emily.

After that party the neighbours and the poorer of Martha’s friends came, bearing gifts of all sorts. Dolls, food, clothes. Until by the time that Emily was three months old she had a set of drawers full.

Elliot now had the big bedroom, so that she could sleep with Emily on the same bed. Raine got his own room for his birthday, and Claudia naturally took the room next to it. Martha moved back down stairs to help Elliot and so Jeff didn’t have to move at all.

And then the day came that Emily spoke her first clear word.

“Mummy.”

It was music to Elliot’s ears, and she burst out in tears and laughter, picking her daughter up and swinging her around.

“Yes my Emily, Mummy’s here, don’t fear a thing I will always protect you.”

Slowly, Elliot forced herself to start making friends with the humans that came by to see her baby. By the time they stopped, she had already made several friends with other human mothers of similar age, so when Emily started to sit and talk Elliot started to take her to socialise with other babies.

The time continued to fly, and before she noticed Emily was a year old.

Elliot was sitting next to Jeffrinn as he held Emily on his knees, amusing her. And Elliot watched as her two children, each of very different nature, seemed to be happy.

So she was happy too.


End file.
